Persuasive Communications - think of the possibilities!

When I was very young I was already practicing the art of persuasive communications. My siblings used to call me "the campaigner!". Later after taking journalism and working in the media and public relations, I learned how to develop and manage my skills to communicate effectively… and yes to persuade people’s opinions to my point of view. I also found the art of negotiating rewarding and fun with my improved ability to communicate persuasively. The more persuasive the communicator - the stronger their ability to negotiate will be.

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In PersuasiveCommunications.net you will discover how to develop your writing and presentation skills. No one has all the answers but you will find techniques and exercises that may work for you. My goal, as I hope yours will be, is to always improve our ability to write or present our views in such a way that other people will join our cause, agree with or at the very least understand our point of view.

The Oxford Dictionary defines “persuade” as causing another person or even oneself to believe realize or agree with a point of view or to carry out an action. To persuade is to convince.

The purpose of persuasive writing or presentation then is to convince one or more people to agree with our point of view or to take the action we want them to take. Effective communications takes careful planning, selection of appropriate words that will engage our intended readers or listeners and a call to action whether it is to believe our point of view or do something we want our reader or listener to do.

Everyday we are bombarded with a broad range of persuasive communication. Advertising is one of the most obvious examples and is a multi-billion dollar industry focused on enticing someone to act – to buy – to get involved – to sign up. Advertising messages come in many forms, television, radio, direct mail newspapers and magazines.

But these are not the only persuasive communications we experience everyday. Social media is becoming a powerful motivating tool. An amazing example of this is how fast people communicated to gather the thousands of people around the White House in Washington DC following the election of President Obama. The power of social media will continue to grow offering us greater opportunity but also greater challenges.

What does this mean for you and I who want to communicate to persuade? While there are more ways to reach out to people, it also means greater efforts will be required to compete with other persuasive communications. It means that planning how we are going to communicate our persuasive messages is more important than ever. Whether it is as personal as a letter of complaint or as broad as a message to sell a product or service, developing a plan or outline is important to achieve success in our persuasive communication.